The present invention relates to a video playback apparatus, and more particularly to a video playback apparatus which functions to vary the brightness of caption colors of a caption displayed on a TV screen.
A character screen display or a caption function is sometimes added on to a magnetic tape or an optical disc playback apparatus, to thereby be utilized in audio-visual education or linguistic education. Also, a video electronic orchestral accompaniment apparatus such as a "videoke" or "karaoke" provides a music accompaniment while processing the lyric lines of songs and displaying them on a screen. However, the aforesaid conventional apparatuses simply display the lyric lines as a single color superposed on the video background. Accordingly, the displayed lyric lines have no vividness. Particularly, in this case, an auditorily handicapped person may be able to understand the contents of the background screen as well as the lyrics, but nonetheless has difficulty discerning the strength and weakness of the audio portion of the playback.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,568,981 discloses one conventional video caption generating apparatus, with which the user can select desired colors or color tones to realize a high-definition caption. A further patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,794,383, discloses technology for varying the colors of both the character and the background according to an external measuring value, thereby providing an apparatus capable of rapidly recognizing the significance of the measuring value. However, neither the above U.S. patents nor their combination can provide an apparatus capable of varying caption color brightness or color tones in accordance with playback audio levels, as in the present invention described hereinafter.